Description:
A chess match seems as solitary an endeavor as there is in sports: two minds, on their own, in fierce opposition. In contrast, Gary Alan Fine argues that chess is a social duet: two players in silent dialogue who always take each other into account in their play. Surrounding that one-on-one contest is a community life that can be nearly as dramatic and intense as the across-the-board confrontation. Fine has spent years immersed in the communities of amateur and professional chess players, and with Players and Pawns he takes readers deep inside them, revealing a complex, brilliant, feisty world of commitment and conflict. Within their community, chess players find both support and challenges, all amid a shared interest in and love of the long-standing traditions of the game, traditions that help chess players build a communal identity.
Full of idiosyncratic characters and dramatic gameplay, Players and Pawns is a celebration of the fascinating world of serious chess.
Brief description: Gary Alan Fine is a visiting scholar at Emory University in Atlanta and the James E. Johnson Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University. He is the author of Fair Share: Senior Activism, Tiny Publics, and the Culture of Resistance, published by the University of Chicago Press.
Review Quotes: "Players and Pawns would make an excellent addition to a game studies course at either the undergraduate or graduate level. . . .That said, the concepts Fine develops are useful to folklorists working with other subcultural groups, and the book should be of interest far beyond game studies."-- "Journal of American Folklore"